While we already live on one income and what I would consider a very frugal lifestyle, in light of the recent news for my husband’s job and the unstable economy, the time has come to really tighten our spending.
While being careful with our spending has allowed me to stay home with my children, being frugal has been fun and challenging for me. I get a thrill out of scoring a great deal. But in all honesty, if I went a little over in a certain budget category, it wasn’t a big deal. We no longer have that “cushion” or option, so being frugal is no longer just a fun hobby, but really a survival skill right now! I am entering an new level of thriftiness, my friends!
I have been reading, and researching, and listening to many others who are in the same boat as we are. The underlying theme is: what can you give up and what can you make yourself?
We have cut a lot out of our budget and have grown in leaps and bounds in the money management area in the past couple of years (thanks to folks like Dave Ramsey!). We have adjusted to a fairly comfortable lifestyle within our slim budget, but for a season it is time to get radical. While there are some fixed expenses to our budget, there are many negotiable as well. At this point, nothing is off limits! Even things that seem like a fixed expense can be tweaked with some thought and effort. My goal is to go over every single budget category and see where we can tweak and cut. I will be sharing our progress and how much we have saved in this series.
While I would much rather be cutting back to save more money or pay down debt instead of just doing it to get through a tough time, I am sure there will be some valuable lessons learned in this process.
If you have been through a job loss, pay cut, decrease in hours, or are just working to recession proof your family, I’d love to hear from you! What have you given up, gone without, and made yourself? How are you keeping your morale up during this time?
To get started on your frugal way, don’t forget to visit Frugal Fridays over at Life As Mom!
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Hubby and I chose to down size our salary…I know it sounds crazy, but we left our well paid fulltime and a half jobs last July to work for the Lord at our church part time. We were doing okay for a while, just making the bare minimum payments on everything, as we had been paying extra on our car loans from the beginning. Our credit cards are always maxed though, and we aren’t getting anywhere on those. However, we have recently cancelled our ‘Foxtel’, then had to spend $400 to get a free-to-air tv aerial installed so that we still had TV. We also sold a car, and hubby is considering selling his boat. We only every buy our vehicles etc second hand, and we don’t eat out, go to see movies or rent DVD’s, when possible we take public transport up to the city to save on petrol. We have always only allowed one light and a lamp on in the house at one time. Its nice to constantly have ‘ambient’ lighting! We have put energy saver bulbs in all of our lights. We grow our own vegies, mow our own lawns and look after our own gardens. I do all the mending of clothing, and we only buy clothing new if we can’t find whatever we need at the opshop. We only buy one gift for our son on birthdays and Christmas, and it has to be under $50. Everyone else buys him plenty of toys, so we don’t need to worry about him ‘not having enough’. I have learnt to wax my own legs, and I go to the budget hair dresser, as they do the same job for less than half the price! The list goes on. We aren’t ahead yet, but we will get there.
I called all our utilities to see if i could get a better deal. Ended up lowering everything except our water, which was pretty fixed ( or so i thought). But then I “splurged” and got the leaky faucet fixed and saved $10 the next month. Of course it will take a bit of time to earn that repair money back, but hey it is no longer just dripping down the drain.
I also started looking to everything in my home that I could get rid of at a garage sale, which I am having in two weeks. I have been so ruthless about this that our front room looks like a Goodwill. LOL! of course growing our own food helps, this year I have asked everyone to just give me Home Dxepot gift certs for my birthday, because i want to expand our garden beds. It took some near begging of my parents to make them realize that I really want the cert and not a new lens for my camera, but they finally relented! woo Hoo, that would be lens bought me four more beds with dirt. Yeah! Can’t wait to read what everyone else has to say and to read Part 2!
Some of the things that we have right now that we did without when my husband was looking for employment and also when he was working for a temp agency for a while:
Renter’s insurance
Going anywhere besides to work (I got a ride to the grocery store with my mom once a week)
ANYTHING extra like eating out, more expensive foods (still ate from scratch and fairly healthfully thanks to Aldi’s!), or even things like “new” (second-hand) clothes unless it was absolutely necessary…
I’m trying to think of what else… we still don’t eat out now, but we have the money to pay for gas to go to the store and to church once a week, thankfully, and we have renter’s insurance (required by our apartment)… we still only have one vehicle (an 11-yr-old paid-for car) which helps on insurance and maintenance costs… now living in an apartment our utilities are actually cheaper than living in our rental house, though of course the rent is a lot more in Seattle than it was in Ohio
Stephanie, we are also a one-income family and my husband has been 8 years without a raise and now due to slow business, his hours are quite often not full-time anymore. Here are the most helpful things for us: (1) Simply stay home more. You’d be surprised how much money you won’t spend by just not being “out” a lot. (2) We don’t eat out…honestly, we go months sometimes without even going to McDonalds! LOL! (3) Cook from scratch. (4) Raise your own food…we raise enough vegetables to get us through the winter (5) We raise our own beef. I know many folks can’t do this, but we have a farm and it really helps us. (6) Study store ads, use coupons, and plan your shopping trips carefully. (7) Multitask. By this I mean…plan most of your errands in one day. We live about 30 minutes away from town. I do all my “running” on one particular day…music lessons, grocery shopping, etc… Saves time and money. (8) Figure out some things you can do without…and simply do without them.
Easier said than done!!!
I know there are no cut and dried rules to fit every family but these are things that help us. Sorry for being so wordy!!! LOL!
I will be following your blog on this! Thanks for your ideas.
I’ve given up Moms Night Out with my moms club. I’ve replaced it with inviting mom friends over for lunch, and nights out to the coffee shop when there are BOGO coupons.
I just can’t justify a night out of cocktails, eating out, and dancing right now. Even if it is only once a month.
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